Dreams May Come a three-leg trip

Life-after-death movies can be tricky to pull off, but What Dreams May Come puts a real effort into the genre. Coming to the Apollo tonight, featuring Robin Williams in his first dramatic role since he received an Oscar, is a movie about family and soul-mates that is sure to evict emotion, so long as Dramamine is swallowed in order to transcend the script.

The movie is set primarily in three places: the east bay area in California, Heaven and Hell. (It takes some really good collaboration to lure Robin Williams far from San Francisco.) The main character, Christopher (Williams), loses his children in a car accident early on, and then, not long after, though there are 4 years we skip over in the story, he is himself killed, again by a car.

Not long after Christopher dies, his wife commits suicide, having lost her whole family to early deaths. While the script manages to avoid much in the way of religious affiliation, those who commit suicide on Earth are consequently committed to an afterlife in Hell. Despite warnings that it is impossible, Christopher embarks to find his wife in hell and bring her with him to Heaven.

Much of the movie, including the important development of Christopher's family's characters, is portrayed through flashbacks. In fact, almost every scene including his son and daughter are flashbacks of pre-death life. The annoyance here is minor, mostly because Hell and Heaven are so fascinating-the great strength of this movie.

Much of the camera work is incredible to watch. The colors are like a Kodak commercial throughout the entire movie. One of the most fantastic effects is when Christopher first arrives in Heaven; he's in one of his wife's paintings, and everything is artistic. A thousand words could not describe the scene. It is interesting that Hell is also great! No way around it. It's frightening and eerie, and the colors change beautifully from the vibrancy of Heaven to the drab, gothic-punk grayness of Hell.

The weak part of this movie is definitely the script. Unfortunately, since the script is the spine of any movie, a weak script is detrimental to the success of a film. Some of the most sickeningly weak lines ever to be broadcast on the silver screen are to be found here, following closely on Williams' big bomb, "Hook." Fortunately, Robin Williams has a few successful films in his repertoire; if the audience doesn't really listen to what he's saying, they won't notice how piss-poor some of his lines actually are. This movie may be more enjoyable with closed ears and open eyes.

Rating: Skip the reserve reading for your seminar.